Volunteer with us!

photo: Greg Tudor

Friends of Trees welcomes volunteers all year, in all parts of our work, from planning to planting. Learn more about these volunteer opportunities below. Or fill out our Volunteer Interest Form to tell us what you're interested in doing.

• Summer Inspectors
• Neighborhood Coordinators
• Tree Planters
• Crew Leaders
• Summer Festival Volunteers
• Interns
• Office Assistants
• Seasonal Volunteers
• Site Stewards
• Special Event Volunteers

To find out more, please contact Betsy Lattig at 503-282-8846 ext. 18 or Andy Meeks at 503-282-8846 ext. 24.

Tree planters help plant trees at weekend events between November and April. We welcome people of all ages and abilities. No previous experience is necessary. Our helpful crew leaders guide small groups of volunteers. Just find a planting on our calendar, dress for the weather, and join us!

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Crew leaders attend a training in November or January to learn how to plant trees and how to guide volunteers at planting events. During our planting season, each crew leader guides a small group of planters at four weekend plantings. Each crew leader receives a Tree Team t-shirt and is invited to attend Friends of Trees leadership celebrations.

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Neighborhood coordinators attend a summer training to learn ways to encourage their neighbors to buy trees, tips for organizing their neighborhood’s annual planting, and guidance in how to use Friends of Trees’ online tree ordering system to track tree purchases. By becoming a neighborhood coordinator, you ensure that your neighborhood will have a planting, and your neighbors will be able to purchase low-cost, high-quality trees for their yards and planting strips.

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photo: Annaliese Moyer

Summer festival volunteers staff a table at an event and chat with people about Friends of Trees opportunities. This is an important way to encourage people to plant trees with us.

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Interns commit to a regular schedule, five to 25 hours a week for three months to a year. Current projects for interns include the following:

• Post yard signs in neighborhoods
• Distribute flyers to local campuses for volunteer recruitment
• Develop educational materials for school groups
• Enter tree route information in database
• Photograph plantings
• Register volunteers at plantings
• Translate Friends of Trees information into Spanish, Mandarin or Russian
• Weed, prune and clean at Friends of Trees
• Wash coffee mugs for planting events during planting season

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Office assistants help with office projects from filing to entering information in our database to sorting t-shirts to making phone calls.

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The following seasonal volunteer positions are available at certain times of the year:

• Help with summer maintenance, invasive plant removal, and tree care
• Tie and glue flagging tape to bamboo stakes to mark where native plants are to be planted
• Mark our tools with different colors so we can keep them organized at planting events
• Help staff members vacuum and wash our trucks

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Site stewards adopt a natural area site and organize plantings and maintenance events for the site.

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Special event volunteers help with preparation, registration and follow-up tasks for events.

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Summer inspectors attend a spring training to learn how to check on the health of trees planted in the neighborhoods they’re assigned to visit. Being a summer inspector gives you a chance to meet your neighbors and to help them take care of their trees during the critical first summer after planting.

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